Affective Memory in Artistic Creation: Tool or Trap?

The article discusses affective memory and its implications for the art of acting. More specifically, the article analyses two cases where affective memory, a potentially important tool for artists, can actually turn into a trap at times. The first case is that of Andrei Mavrodin, a character in a Mircea Eliade novel, who fails both in art and in love because, while he turns to his affective memory as a tool for building his fictional characters, he does not manage to do the same in his romantic relationship. In Andrei Mavrodin’s mind there is a preconstructed image of what an artist should be, and he chooses to act that image out, hurting both his lover and himself in the process. The second case is personal. At the beginning of my acting career, I turned to my affective memory to help me construct a role in a one-man show, but I ended up in the impossibility to clearly dissociate myself from the role I was playing; in other words, I acted emotionally in a situation that called for objectivity. This study aims at taking an in-depth look at this duality, by analysing how affective memory, when used as a source for artistic works, can easily turn from a tool into a trap.